


Bâillon

by Aine_Llewellyn



Category: Otherfaith Religion & Lore
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Gods, Origin Story, Original Mythology, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28212207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aine_Llewellyn/pseuds/Aine_Llewellyn
Summary: Erann entered the West in the summer.And there was Ava, coated in blood, breath hot and visible, even in the humid heat of her throne room.
Relationships: Laetha Ava & Erann
Kudos: 2
Collections: Complete Collection of Otherfaith Fanfic





	Bâillon

**Author's Note:**

> ' _Bâillon_ ' translates to 'muzzle' or 'gag'.

Erann entered the West in the summer. The heat was nothing compared to the dunes. If anything, the weather was pleasant and relaxing after…

Well, after a long time in the desert.

He knew better than to say much of anything, though. He’d traveled enough. He’d heard the complaints of hot and cold and rain and snow and shine often enough. When he entered the West of Fairyland and heard the residents bitching, he kept silent and just smiled.

The god who dragged him to the Westernmost West frowned up at him.

Alma, the god, was a tiny little waif. She reached Erann’s thigh, at best, and looked barely older than a toddler. Erann had seen a hundred, a thousand awful gods and men, though, so a child-god was hardly notable. She was far more composed than most child-gods he had the misfortune to encounter. Most of them were all a little mad. He attributed it to being, well, children.

Alma had not acted like a child since the moment he met her. He hated it. She made his teeth ache with how hard he had to keep smiling at her.

She had not smiled back one single time.

She hadn’t emoted much at all, honestly, and Erann couldn’t decide if that was because she _couldn’t_ or she _wouldn’t_. Half the time he didn’t know about himself and his own face, though, so he didn’t judge her for that. He judged her plenty for the striking red and white outfit she wore as constant as her non-expression, though. The red cross on her tunic reminded him of gods and men he had encountered, preaching peace and healing and never living up to those promises.

He wondered if Alma was as full of bullshit as all the rest of the gods he had met.

Alma had, ostensibly, brought him into the West of Fairyland to aid her divine sibling. God siblings – the idea had made Erann laugh, because it was so cliché. But he didn’t have a job when Alma had approached him, laid out as he was on the dunes (waiting, waiting to just die, just fucking die already), and a little excitement made eternity pass faster, right? Besides, who said no to a kid?

Alma’s eyes were a colorless hue that made Erann’s omnipresent smile wobble and his spine shudder with a deep discomfort. But, divine or not, she was just a kid. He just kept his eyes away from hers.

(Not hard. When did he meet people eye to eye? What sort of bullshit was that – the humans always complained when someone didn’t manage it, but didn’t they know that _some_ people – not Erann, definitely, not Erann, he wasn’t anything at all – didn’t grow up looking into another’s gaze? Didn’t they know a damn thing about –

No, humans tended to not know a damn thing.)

Alma brought him into the West in the middle of summer. Her hand was tiny where she gripped his own. He felt especially large and inappropriate as he stepped through the unreal black gate she lead him through. A shudder of magic passed through his body.

Any ill will he had toward this world, these gods, would be excised violently from his body, he realized. His expression didn’t falter as he stumbled into the orchard inside the gate.

That magic sure was vicious, though.

Alma dropped his hand to mess with some sort of flat object Erann hadn’t seen before, even during all his travels across the worlds. Erann enjoyed his brief respite from being towed around by the child-god to watch as a traveler passed through the gate.

The poor traveler’s body split into five or six pieces and collapsed, like chopped produce, into the soil of the orchard.

Another traveler came through a minute later without issue.

‘Mean magic,’ Erann thought as he scratched his cheek.

Alma stepped closer to him. Her odd dark tablet-object was gone. She gazed up at him, focused as ever, intent, and he stared just past her shoulder at some blooming flower he was sure he’d seen before. He never bothered to learn the names of flowers or plants or any of that shit.

“My sister is ready for us,” Alma said.

Her voice was a void. Intonation and inflect were absent, as they had been since Erann encountered her. Would her sister be the same?

Would she look the same? he wondered as Alma grabbed his hand once again and dragged him through the orchard. He let her lead. There was no point minding the path or roads. Whatever purpose Alma had summoned him for he would fulfill and then continue on his pointless way. He would enjoy the temperate climate of this world before returning to the heat of the desert dunes.

His mind drifted horrendously until Alma placed him in front of a huge red and gold door.

A dozen people stood beside the ornate, obnoxious entrance. They were all dressed in varying levels of red and yellow – _like the door_ , Erann thought – and had a red tinge to their hair, but they were as varied as humans and fey. One was sitting in an odd metal chair (a wheelchair, Erann recalls from the depths of his memory). Two of them were as dark as Alma but proper adults; a few were tanned with a smattering of dark freckles and moles and green eyes, though they made Erann equally uncomfortable as Alma’s colorless irises; some were pale as paper. Half of them looked so delicate and thin that Erann knew he could blow on them and they would snap in two. The rest looked sturdy enough to take a blow or two, at least.

All of them leaned closer. They barely spared a glance or two for him before focusing their ethereal eyes upon Alma. Good. He didn’t want that much divine focus on him. He would end up curling his lip in distaste without meaning to if he was subjected to it.

“What is he supposed to do?” one of the men in the crowd asked.

A sharp scream pierced the air. The door didn’t do much to muffle it.

Erann felt his eyebrows rising in interest, despite himself.

Alma didn’t react at all. The rest of the crowd gathered at the door all flinched.

“I brought him for Ava,” Alma answered.

Erann rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m to…bond with her? Is that right?” he asked.

(He’d do whatever bond the gods needed until he could wriggle his way out of it. As he always did.)

“It is,” Alma affirmed.

“Alma!” a few of the crowd protested.

Ah, now that was nice – the whine and complaint made a tinge of sincerity enter Erann’s smile. He turned a genuine grin down at Alma.

“You said she was sadistic, this sister of yours?” he asked.

“Insatiably,” Alma replied in her deadpan.

The red and gold door was obnoxiously ornate and obnoxiously heavy, or it would be for most. Erann gave a thumbs up as he slipped through the entrance.

There couldn’t be anything worse within the house than what he had seen before. Humans were so vicious. Gods were vicious. Men and fairy and spirit and god and star and time – they all made bitter bloody tattered remains of what they touched. How familiar was he with sadism that it filled his veins? Too familiar.

This was his life. This was what he had chosen.

His choice, he reminded himself as he turned to face Alma’s sister.

The room he had stepped into was completely coated in blood and viscera.

Hanging from a ruddy floor lamp was a line of intestines. The lighting fixtures were so coated the room was illuminated in unpleasant, deep red. Beneath his feet crushed bones, and liquid sloshed around his shoes.

He wasn’t going to be able to get the stain out of his pants, that was for sure.

In the center of the room was the one fixture not painted crimson: a golden throne. It glowered with a holy light Erann had seen a hundred times: divinity illuminated. No sin or crime could touch it, even when committed by god. The soft cream cushion was unstained. The gold radiated a halo.

Before it stood a girl, just as young as Alma, radiating a white halo but coated in filth.

Ava, Alma’s sister and the other…child-god.

She panted heavily, so obviously her whole body heaved. Her hands looked closer to claws or knives. Her hair – strands of blond visible despite the awful red – was matted around her face, so when she whipped up to look at Erann he could barely see her gold eyes.

“Hello,” he greeted.

Her breath was visible as she panted. The room was hardly cold – no, the temperature was closer to the desert dunes he had just left behind.

How unpleasant.

“…leave,” she ordered. Her body twitched as if wrenched by puppet strings. “Please.”

Erann extended a hand. “I’m afraid I can’t. Your sister called me. Alma – do you remember her?”

“Of course I remember her!” the girl snarled. She twitched again, her fingers contorting before her shoulders tensed and rolled. “What she called you here for is – beyond me.”

“She thought I could help. Help you,” Erann clarified.

Ava laughed without humor. “How nice.” She turned away. The hand she raised to her face was – too large, Erann realized.

Three wings draped from Ava’s miniscule back: red black and white.

He took a step forward.

“I am here to help,” he assured her.

Ava laughed again. “I…think I might rather die. After all.”

A gold eye peeked out from between Ava’s claws.

“If that is alright with you,” she said.

There were about three feet between Erann and the filth-smeared god.

The room smelled – awful.

It looked awful too.

He thought of his endless dunes, the sand beneath his hands, the sun and blue sky, the endless endlessness, eternity stretching out and never going much of anywhere.

He waded further into the room, blood up to his ankles, and held Ava’s wrists.

“Let’s live,” he said, quietly, the words which he would never say again.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if it doesn't make much sense!
> 
> Erann is the Laetha Ava's Companion - a larger, more stable spirit that takes in the excess magic/energy of another smaller spirit that can't handle it. Ava is the 'King' of the Laethas and processes most of their magical power. Without Erann there to bolster her she would, well...not be doing so well, but her 'curse' of being the King would pass to another one of her Laetha siblings. 
> 
> I omitted the actual violent aspect of their bonding. To actually form their bond, the smaller spirit needs to inflict a scarring wound upon the larger and, well, we will see if Erann ever lets me write that in story form. For now, please accept this humble offering upon Winter Solstice 2020.


End file.
